postcards from the growing edge

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Asking the big questions

I , along with half the world, watched Pope Francis’ inauguration yesterday. Beautifully filmed, it was a moving occasion, and compelling drama. ++Justin Welby will be enthroned tomorrow, and I am sure it will be an equally momentous occasion, though perhaps with a smaller crowd.

The last time both heads of the church changed, at almost the same time, was in 1294. They were two weeks apart.

Both men seem to have a fair bit in common, and even look uncannily alike. They both demonstrate a humble, almost diffident approach to the positions of power they have been chosen to take on. They both eschew the ostentatious trappings of their roles, and embody Jesus’ foundational teaching of service – that ‘the first shall be last’.
“Let us never forget that authentic power is service, and that the Pope too, when exercising power, must enter ever more fully into that service which has its radiant culmination on the Cross.”
It is an upside down world view, that the world will never understand.

It may be an apocryphal story, but it is said that St Francis was overheard at prayer. The cry to Heaven from Francis lips was in the form of a crucial question.. “Who are you and who am I, that you should choose me?”
I don’t know whether he ever received an answer, but certainly history has answered in full why God chose that particular young man.

It is a question that I imagine both Pope Francis, and ++Justin may have asked themselves of God, in recent days. Not only the inevitable ‘why me?’ cry, but the deep, important questions about who they are, and what is the nature of the God who has called them to serve. History in time, will tell us too, what God has been about in selecting these men but the signs so far, would seem to indicate a fresh wind of the Spirit blowing through the church.

St Francis’ prayerful cry was the subject of a talk given by the person leading my BAP (Bishop’s Assessment Panel) three years ago. It struck a deep note within me, and I have never forgotten it. I am now approaching my priesting in the Summer, and the question is as relevant now as it was then. It is one I have to keep on asking, and keep listening for the answer. History, I suspect, will have very little to say about me, but what God has to say when I get through Heaven’s gates, is what really matters when all is said and done.